Updated 11:35 pm, Tuesday, June 26, 2012

TROY — A group of four young men stopped a boy with a bike and his friend on Mill Street and asked the pair if they wanted to go swimming.

"I said no," the boy on the bike, 13, said in his statement to police. "Then the kid with no shirt and long hair, who was wearing red shorts with blue stripes, told me to get off the bike or he would hit me."

The shirtless teen grabbed the bike's handlebars. He told the boy to get off again, this time cocking back his tightly clenched fist, the boy said.

"I stepped off the bike and he took it," the boy said.

The incident unfolded around 3:15 p.m. Monday near the road's intersection with Erie Street. It's the type of crime that makes cops' blood boil.

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"I saw the report once I came in and it just really got to me," Capt. John Cooney said.

The boy with the bike was on his way to the home of his best friend's mother. After his bike was stolen, he sat on the side of the road and cried.

A passer-by stopped to ask what was wrong.

"I thought he may have been hurt," Brandon Coonradt said in his statement to police. "He told me some kids 'stole my bike.' Then he pointed to two people going down Mill Street toward the South End Tavern."

They spotted the teen who threatened the boy. Coonradt followed him in his truck to First Avenue, took down the address of a home the person entered and called police. While Coonradt waited for officers, he said he saw the boy's bike get wheeled around to the back yard. Coonradt returned to Mill Street and waited with the tearful child.

Lind, 19, was charged with resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration, both misdemeanors. Police said Lind fought with officers as he was taken into custody.

A woman let officers into the home. They went through the house and checked the backyard. Police found one of the suspects, a 15-year-old, at a home next door.

The teen, who was not identified because of his age, was handcuffed, but broke an officer's grip, court records said.

"He then tried to head-butt me," Officer Craig Faby said in his statement. "(He) continued to struggle by kicking and spitting at officers."

Police asked the robbery victim to identify the suspect who took his bicycle.

"I looked at four kids, but only recognized one," the boy said in his statement. "The one I recognized had no shirt on, longer hair, red shorts with a blue stripe."

The teen fitting the description was charged with obstruction of governmental administration, resisting arrest and felony robbery. The charges are expected to be handled in family court due to the suspect's age.

After hearing Coonradt's story about the bike theft, All-Lifts Inc., the company Coonradt works for, sent him out with a budget to purchase a new bike.

Coonradt put the new bike in his truck and brought it to the boy Tuesday afternoon.